lookupkey absolute path support

lookupkey: Support being given an absolute filename to a file within the
current git repository.

This commit was supported by the NSF-funded DataLad project.

2 files changed, 29 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/doc/bugs/annex-lookupkey_fails_to_deal_with_absolute_paths.mdwn b/doc/bugs/annex-lookupkey_fails_to_deal_with_absolute_paths.mdwn
index c3acefa18..f08d822b6 100644
--- a/doc/bugs/annex-lookupkey_fails_to_deal_with_absolute_paths.mdwn
+++ b/doc/bugs/annex-lookupkey_fails_to_deal_with_absolute_paths.mdwn
@@ -50,3 +50,7 @@ Apparently, git-annex-lookupkey can't handle absolute paths to files to look for
 ### Have you had any luck using git-annex before? (Sometimes we get tired of reading bug reports all day and a lil' positive end note does wonders)
 
 I do! I wouldn't even have my job, if it wasn't for git-annex. ;-)
+
+> Which warms the cockles of my heart, Ben! :)
+> 
+> [[fixed|done]] --[[Joey]]
diff --git a/doc/bugs/annex-lookupkey_fails_to_deal_with_absolute_paths/comment_1_b9aa0c69b8841c8fe885a5e2e9ec9a06._comment b/doc/bugs/annex-lookupkey_fails_to_deal_with_absolute_paths/comment_1_b9aa0c69b8841c8fe885a5e2e9ec9a06._comment
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..72ff677fc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/bugs/annex-lookupkey_fails_to_deal_with_absolute_paths/comment_1_b9aa0c69b8841c8fe885a5e2e9ec9a06._comment
@@ -0,0 +1,25 @@
+[[!comment format=mdwn
+ username="joey"
+ subject="""comment 1"""
+ date="2017-12-08T18:58:18Z"
+ content="""
+This is due to lookupkey not passing the filename through git ls-files like
+most (all?) other commands do.
+
+Using git ls-files would lead to other behavior changes though. It recurses into
+directories. I don't think it makes sense for lookupkey to recurse into
+directories, because its output format does not include the filename, so
+listing a bunch of keys for annexed files is not clear. git annex find
+can already recurse and can use a format with the key and the filename
+that's suited for directory recursion. git annex lookupkey, as plumbing,
+is supposed to be simpler than that.
+
+I suppose lookupkey could normalize absolute file paths, checking if they
+point into the git repository. I don't think that git-annex contains
+such normalization code, and it might be a lot more complicated than it at
+first seems -- git has a lot of wrinkles with submodules, symlinks, etc etc.
+git does not seem to have a suitable command to do it.
+
+So seems the best way is to use git ls-files and detect when it's recursing,
+and exit nonzero then.
+"""]]